Debtors's Prison is Alive and Well

By Mark Charalambous, December 20, 2001

Those concerned with the civil liberty implications of war tribunals should refocus
their attention to matters judicial closer to home. New York Times columnist
Anthony Lewis decries the potential for panels of as few as three jurists empowered to
determine life and death; but in our family courts a single justice acts as judge, jury,
and executioner in matters that, while not usually as final, can often be perceived as
worse than death for those on the losing side.

For robbery, aggravated
assault, homicide -- and perhaps even flying airplanes into buildings -- defendants are
assumed innocent until proven guilty, provided legal counsel at taxpayer expense, and
given every consideration to guarantee that their civil rights arent violated in the
process of ascertaining their guilt. Non-custodial fathers should be so lucky.

John Flaherty, citizen, father, and law-abiding physics professor, presently receives
his mail at the Plymouth County House of Correction where he is serving a five-month
sentence for contempt of court. Middlesex Probate & Family Court Judge Beverly
Boorstein sentenced him for refusing to pay an alleged child support arrearage, which
supposedly goes back six years but was manufactured at a hearing just several months ago.

Apparently we have become desensitized to incarcerating men in what should rightfully
be called "debtors prison." Indeed, the ending of debtors prison can
be considered a milestone on humanity's path to the free society. But debtors prison
is alive and well, functioning on a daily basis in our nations divorce courts, which
have become virtual feminist tribunals prosecuting fathers for crimes of "the
patriarchy."

John Flaherty was sentenced to jail October 1without a
trial. Judge Boorstein didnt even bother to write a Finding of Fact. But Flaherty is
not your average non-custodial father. Since the legal travails ensuing from the breakdown
of his marriage began, he has made a second career out of learning the law and teaching
other non-custodial fathers how to defend themselves. Without the Finding, he was able to
forestall the jail sentence for several weeks until Boorstein complied with an Appeals
court order to produce "detailed findings." Such is the brazen attitude of
judges who dont even bother to provide the appearance of due process in their
prosecution of fathers, until forced to do so.

Before September 11, the
hottest issue for the self-appointed social-justice watchdogs was racial profiling.
Completely ignored is the far more pervasive and institutionalized gender-profiling
in the application of domestic relations law. But those of the chattering class only
recognize injustice where its politically correct to do so.

The Flaherty case docket is not for the timid. It has more twists and turns than a
David Mamet thriller. Though he is confident that his appeal of the sentence will succeed,
that trial wont come before the expiration of his sentence. Unlike defendants for
other crimes who are typically freed on probation before the full sentence is completed,
Flaherty expects to serve the full five months. Non-payment of child support, like absurd
"no-contact" violations of domestic abuse protection orders, is a gender crime.
Because of the feminization of the courts, such "crimes" are treated more
seriously than conventional ones. For robbery, aggravated assault, homicide ¾ and perhaps even flying airplanes into buildings ¾ defendants are assumed innocent until proven guilty, provided
legal counsel at taxpayer expense, and given every consideration to guarantee that their
civil rights arent violated in the process of ascertaining their guilt.
Non-custodial fathers should be so lucky.

Before September 11, the hottest issue for the self-appointed social-justice watchdogs
was racial profiling. Completely ignored is the far more pervasive and institutionalized gender-profiling
in the application of domestic relations law. But those of the chattering class only
recognize injustice where its politically correct to do so.

Parents who fail to comply with a court order are held to two different standards based
solely on their sex. Women are not jailed for domestic transgressions ¾
men are. In identical situations justice takes a predictably different course for female
defendants. Can anyone conceive of a father who murdered his five children being afforded
sympathy from any quarter, as has Andrea Yates from the National Organization of Women?

Three decades of feminization have so warped our expectations that no one blinks an eye
when judges turn to female plaintiffs in child support cases and actually ask them if they
want their ex-husbands jailed.

But irrespective of the corruption of justice in divorce courts, what about the ethical
questions of non-payment of child support? Is it appropriate to jail non-custodial parents
for willful failure to pay?

In identical situations
justice takes a predictably different course for female defendants. Can anyone conceive of
a father who murdered his five children being afforded sympathy from any quarter, as has
Andrea Yates from the National Organization of Women? Three decades of feminization have so warped our expectations that no one blinks an
eye when judges turn to female plaintiffs in child support cases and actually ask them if
they want their ex-husbands jailed.

Perhaps reasonable people can disagree on what to do with fathers who intentionally
abandon their children, but when we are considering involved, loving fathers who raised
and provided for their children when the family was intact and wish to continue having a
meaningful parental relationship with their children, we need a reality check. The idea
that such fathers should have their children forcibly taken away from them, often with
access to them severely restricted or terminated, as well as being criminalized in the
process, and that they should then be forced to pay exorbitant and usurious amounts of
so-called "child support" to the mother, is simply perverse.

The Massachusetts Child Support Guideline provides for the highest awards in the
nation. Under the Guideline, child support has become an entitlement for women¾ an incentive for single motherhood. The Guideline provides for up
to 40% of the non-custodial fathers gross income to be transferred to the mother
with not a shred of accountability¾ not from the mother or
from the Department of Revenue, which now attaches wages by default.

Everyone knows some poor guy who is paying a ridiculous amount of money each week to
some woman who doesnt even let him see his children. The child support regime in
Massachusetts is responsible for much injustice and suffering, all done in "the best
interests of the children."

Whose best interests are really served when women turn their children against their
fathers, while bleeding them for every penny they can milk out of them? Do the children
benefit? And what message is being delivered to these children?

Girls are being taught that men can be easily manipulated with the complicity of the
government.

And whats the message for boys? Considering their reeducation by feminists (of
both sexes) in the classroom to disdain their own masculinity, it should come as no
surprise that what they see happening to their fathers serves as a powerful lesson in
their emasculation.

Fathers who believe that they are doing the right thing by abiding by their outrageous
child support orders are not helping their children. They are validating the government
bean-counters definition of "fatherhood," which promotes single-parent
maternal households¾ the most dangerous environment for
children¾ and the destruction of the father-child
relationship and ultimately undermines the biological nuclear family itself. This
harms not only their own children, but also all children and by extension society. It is
not only acceptable for noncustodial fathers to follow Flahertys example and
resist the child support regime even at the expense of their own freedom, it is their true
child support obligation.